Celebrating
its leading role in setting standards in communications ITU will hold a one day
event - 20 July - to hear what some of the top executives from the world of ICT have to say
about the future of this remarkable industry.

In 2006,
ITU-T (formerly CCITT) celebrates fifty years of making the standards that have
played a massive role in shaping the information and communication technologies
(ICT) and services of today. In 1924/5, two technical committees were created
to set standards regulating technical and operating questions for international
long-distance telephony and telegraphy. Fifty years ago, in 1956, these two
technical committees were merged to become CCITT (Consultative Committee for
International Telegraphy and Telephony) which later became ITU-T, where all
standards-setting activities of ITU were consolidated for wire and wireless
networks.

While
celebrating the past achievements of ITU in the field of standardization, the
event will be forward looking in focus. The morning will see keynote speeches
from among others the Chairman of the Board of China Netcom and the CEO and
President of NTT and CEO of Svyazinvest. In the afternoon there will be two
executive round table discussions on the future of ICTs. The discussion panels
will consist of CTOs and other senior experts from some of the world’s major
ICT companies, including Alcatel, Cisco, Deutsche
Telekom, France
Télécom, KDDI, Korea Telecom, KPN, Nortel, Rostelecom, Siemens, Telefónica and
ZTE.

As well as
attending this important event you are invited to vote for the most influential
standards work from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) at
www.itu.int/ITU-T/50/vote.html.
Select from this shortlist which you think has best shaped the ICT world of
today, or feel free to nominate your own.

Study
group chairs and experts attending the meeting on next generation networks —
global standards initiative (NGN-GSI) will be present. The event is free and
open to any interested party but only a limited number of places are available,
so please register online as soon as possible. An audio webcast of the entire
event will be available at www.itu.int/ibs/. Journalists interested in
attending should contact Toby Johnson.

Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process

- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int - For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html - Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address

A new ITU-T Focus Group will develop standards for
ICTs in cars, and a workshop on the same topic has been announced for March
2007.

The group, open to non-ITU members, and in particular
aiming to attract participation from car manufacturers, will be calledFrom/In/To
Cars Communication and will, according to
terms of reference agreed at the recent meeting of ITU-T’s Study Group 12 address:

Special requirements/testing procedures for speech recognition systems in cars

Deliverables from the group will be submitted to SG 12
for formal approval as ITU-T Recommendations.

Jean-Yves Monfort, Chairman Study Group 12: “It
is essential for all stakeholders to come to grips with these technologies that
are having a profound influence on vehicle development, the driver experience
and the way that vehicles are now sold. They have the potential to vastly
improve vehicle mobility and safety, while increasing comfort and
enjoyment, but they also raise some fundamental questions. What are the right
business models in linking the automotive and telecoms sectors? How do we
face the technical and engineering challenges? How do we make sure that the
right standards are adopted to deal with the complexity of so many electronic
components and to allow this market to develop its full potential? It is the
goal of these activities, the formation of the Focus Group and the workshop, to
provide some answers to these questions.”

ITU-T’s SG12 work in the field started following the
2003 ITU, Workshop on
Standardization in Telecommunication for motor vehicles. The formation of the FG, will make it easier for car manufacturers,
standards organizations and others to participate in the development of a new
set of requirements and specifications to help advance the work of ITU-T.

The group, chaired by Hans Gierlich, Head Acoustics,
will first meet January 2007, with a second meeting planned during the Geneva
Motor Show, March 2007. The Motor Show will also host a workshop, convened
jointly by ITU, ISO and IEC, The Fully Networked Car, Information and
Communication Technologies in Motor Vehicles. The event will review and
examine the implications of the latest developments in this fast-moving market.
A significant value-add will be an exhibition showcasing the latest
technologies in the field. The exhibition will run the length of the Geneva
Motor Show, while the workshop will take place between 7 and 9 March.

Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process

- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int - For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html - Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address

NGN according to the Recommendation introduces
new reporting needs to address new service types expected.

The Recommendation describes a trouble in a
communications network as a problem that has an adverse effect on the quality
of service perceived by network users. Management of trouble tickets is
necessary to ensure that they receive attention and that the trouble is cleared
to restore the service.

At the time of a trouble, a network may have
been inter-working with another network to provide a service. Therefore a
standardized way of exchanging trouble management information between
management systems across interfaces is necessary.

Study Group 4 saw the
consent of a Recommendation (M.3342) which provides the means to document
service level agreements (SLA) between a
service customer and a service provider.

The Rec. takes into account the fact that NGN demands
QoS guarantees for services. SLAs are considered an effective way of solving
the problems of QoS guarantee between customers and providers. The
Recommendation describes the detailed classification of SLA content, provides guidelines
and instructions for the definition and composition of ‘SLA
representation templates’ in order to manage QoS and service guarantees more effectively. It also includes instructions on how to
complete the templates.

The NGN Management Focus Group (NGNMFG)
is seeking more input from service providers and network operators in order to
build a more accurate roadmap of needs and existing specifications for NGN
management. The group presenting version 2 of its roadmap at the May meeting
of Study Group 4, in Beijing,
changed its terms of reference to reflect the need.

While roadmap V1 identified NGN management
specifications from ITU-T as well as other standards making organizations, V2
provides gap analysis and pinpoints areas that can benefit from better
harmonization. Recognizing a gap in managing new functions tying the NGN
transport stratum to the service stratum, V2 sees the addition of management of
IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) and NGN transport technologies like ASON
(automatic switched optical network) and Ethernet.

As
part of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of ITU-T, you
are invited to vote for the most influential standards work from ITU-T.

ITU
work is behind many of the worlds most prevalent information and communications
technologies. Choose here from our shortlist which
you think has best shaped the ICT world of today, or feel free to suggest your
own idea.

ITU-T
together with the Independent Joint Photographic Expert Group (IJG) is
celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the CCITT/ITU-T and
ISO Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) with the release of an alpha version
of software for a new more efficient compression scheme. The new ITU extension
to JPEG known as ITU-T Recommendation T.851 means that compression is increased
such that images will take-up less space on people’s hard drives or digital
cameras.

The
program available here allows
users to input image files for compression at a more efficient rate than that
currently offered. The group responsible for producing the open source software
is inviting people to test and contribute to the development of the project.

Recently,
and capitalizing on the ‘toolbox’ concept of the original JPEG design, ITU-T
approved ITU-T Rec. T.851, a royalty-free extension that adds to T.81, more
commonly known as JPEG, an alternative compression method using so-called Q15
arithmetic coding. Q15 provides not only higher compression ratios for stored
and transmitted images, but - compared to the original arithmetic coding in
JPEG - also lower latency for compressing and displaying images. T.851 also
extends the color precision of JPEG to maximum 16 bits per color component,
which is seen as essential in applications such as medical imaging,
professional photography and high quality printing.

Founded
in 1986 by its parent bodies, the then ITU CCITT Study Group VIII and the
ISO/TC97/SC2/WG8 group, JPEG continues today under the auspices of ISO/IEC JTC1
SC29/WG1 and ITU-T Study Group 16. The most famous product of JPEG was ITU-T
Recommendation T.81 | ISO/IEC 10918-1, which specifies a process for digital
compression and coding of continuous-tone still images, and is more commonly
known by the name of the group, JPEG. This is the most used format for storing
and transmitting photographs on the Internet, in digital photography and in
many other image compression applications, and it was approved in 1992 first by
ITU-T (then CCITT) and later by ISO/IEC.

Work
on the new compression algorithm was started in 2004 by ITU-T Study Group 16.
The aim was to allow users to take advantage of recent technological advances,
with the addition to the JPEG suite of an alternative, royalty free coder that
would allow even better image compression efficiency and lower latency. The
successful completion of this first phase of the work resulted in the
publication of the specification ITU-T Rec. T.851 after approval in September
2005. Experts from SG 16 say to stay tuned for further developments.

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